Robert Puentes

Robert Puentes is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program where he also directs the program's Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. Robert's work focuses on the broad array of policies and issues related to metropolitan growth and development including transportation and infrastructure, urban planning, growth management, suburban issues, and smart cities.

Prior to joining Brookings, Robert was the director of infrastructure programs at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia where he served on the Alumni Advisory Board, and is an affiliated professor with Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute.

He serves on a variety of boards and committees including, most recently, New York State's 2100 Infrastructure Commission; the District of Columbia's Streetcar Financing and Governance Task Force; the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority's Technical Advisory Committee; the Tysons Corner Tomorrow Advisory Task Force; and the Falls Church, Virginia Planning Commission where he lives with his wife and three sons.

He is a frequent speaker to a variety of groups, a regular contributor in newspapers and other media, and has testified before Congressional committees.

Robert Puentes is a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program where he also directs the program’s Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. Robert’s work focuses on the broad array of policies and issues related to metropolitan growth and development including transportation and infrastructure, urban planning, growth management, suburban issues, and smart cities.

Prior to joining Brookings, Robert was the director of infrastructure programs at the Intelligent Transportation Society of America. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Virginia where he served on the Alumni Advisory Board, and is an affiliated professor with Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute.

He serves on a variety of boards and committees including, most recently, New York State’s 2100 Infrastructure Commission; the District of Columbia’s Streetcar Financing and Governance Task Force; the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority’s Technical Advisory Committee; the Tysons Corner Tomorrow Advisory Task Force; and the Falls Church, Virginia Planning Commission where he lives with his wife and three sons.

The face of transportation is changing rapidly, and it has forced a larger conversation about the role of the system and how it will affect people and the environment... Making the case broadly is not hard on hearts—it’s the process that will be the hard.

Tackling climate change – particularly from a transportation perspective – will require... [public-private] partnerships largely because traditional governments and public agencies are underperforming... The public sector often does not have the capacity or expertise to design, finance, execute and sustain policies that work, so these partnerships are helping fill the vacuum with a new kind of problem solving.

[Public-private partnerships are] attractive particularly for large-scale infrastructure investment like [Redondo's partnership with CenterCal on the waterfront development project], where cities are looking for new models, new innovations and new partnerships.